The Anthropocene Reviewed · Complexly, John Green

Gray Aliens and Rock Paper Scissors

June 27, 2019·22 min·1 clip

As a child, John Green became convinced that every person on Earth was a gray alien wearing a sophisticated human suit — and the fear lasted years.

John opens by noting that the 1980s were saturated with alien imagery — E.T., alien abduction books, alien egg toys. He argues this is partly explained by post-Watergate distrust of government, making the Roswell cover-up story plausible. He traces the gray alien image to H.G. Wells' 1893 essay Man of the Year Million, in which Wells predicted future humans would be hairless and large-brained with great soulful eyes — a description identical to how people describe gray aliens today. Barney and Betty Hill's 1961 abduction account in New Hampshire was treated more seriously than previous reports because both witnesses reported the same experience, and as the story spread, more people began reporting encounters with small gray humanoids. By the 1990s, grays featured in about half of U.S. and Australian abduction accounts. John notes that reports of alien abductions have dropped dramatically in the last 15 years, likely because grays are less present in media. He cites a 2002 study called A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies showing that half of people falsely remembered taking a hot air balloon ride after seeing a doctored photo, and argues that human consciousness is not a sealed vessel — we are shaped by our information environments. John then describes his own childhood alien obsession: from ages seven to eight, he was consumed by the fear that he was the only real human on Earth and everyone else was a gray alien in a human suit. He set alarms to catch aliens entering through his ceiling light fixture and kept the fear secret for years, feeling isolated and embarrassed. Eventually he sobbed the confession to his parents, who listened and did not laugh. He gives gray aliens two stars. The rock paper scissors section opens with John's 2007 dilemma choosing between two equally priced houses, resolved by a game of RPS that he lost, steering him to the house two doors down from who would become his best friends. He traces the game from a possible Han Dynasty origin — originally featuring a frog, centipede, and snake — through Japan where the rock-paper-scissors format crystallized in the 17th century, and into American slang as Rochambeau. He recounts the story of Japanese collector Takashi Hashiyama having Sotheby's and Christie's compete via RPS for the right to sell his art collection. Christie's consulted 11-year-old twins, who advised opening with scissors. Christie's won. John argues that the game's value is in honestly acknowledging luck: we do not deserve our good outcomes or our bad ones, and games that acknowledge randomness are more honest than systems that pretend merit explains everything.

As heard by us

John Green turns rock-paper-scissors and gray-alien fear into a calm, cumulative essay about luck and unease.

John Green braids rock-paper-scissors with childhood fear of gray aliens into a calm, funny essay about how luck and dread leak into ordinary life.

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You want a quiet essay that turns a childhood fear about aliens into an argument about chance.

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